Empires at war
by WritofUnions
Summary: Entire worlds have gone dark in only hours, their surfaces hot, marred glass. Nobody is left. Fleets have disappeared with haunting, broken transmissions as their final words. The force reeks of death, with no clue to what is killing... On the blood of our fathers, On the blood of our sons, we swore to uphold the Covenant. A dark time for the great journey lies ahead.
1. (1) This is how it all begins

19 BBY, Endor System

Hulumn Nikonu, Captain of the small YV-929 freighter was having a strange morning. The female weequay woke up knowing something was going to happen, although after the stock of caf had gone missing, she figured it was merely that, yet the feeling persisted.

"Julin, any idea what that thing is?" Hulumn asked her communications officer, really not much more than a pirate in some painted clothes suited to identify her affiliation and aid her work.  
"No, ma'am. I've never seen anything like it. It's easily longer than a republic carrier, but it looks... alien. Even to me," The officer responded. "It looks like a sort of eel combined with a seppy ship." The comms crackle to life and a deep, throaty voice cuts through the static, quickly correcting itself to basic.  
"This is Fleet Master Rath 'Marelosee of the fleet of Inagurative Inquisition. Unknown vessle, halt and identify yourself."

"Weapons, what do you read of that ship's armament?" The elder fleetmaster asked his weapons command officer.  
"They seem primitive, yet advanced. I cannot detect any weapons aside a set on either wing and on the bow. I suspect they pose little threat to us."  
"Very well, we shall escort the contact to our closest ship, navigations. Communications, which ship would that be?"  
"Blade's Apprentice, Sir," The young sangheili responded.  
"Hail the unknown contact and coordinate with the navigations officer to arrange Sword's boarding", the fleetmaster ordered.

Hulumn stared in awe as her crew disembarked from the freighter they called home for over 15 years. A monstrous alien in white armor stood over them, flanked by two crimson armored aliens that were slightly shorter than the lead. She soaked in every detail, from their oddly hinged legs to their massive, 4 fingered hands to the ever so obvious 4 mandibled mouth which somehow was able to form intelligible speech.  
"So, shipmaster," the center alien boomed. "What has brought you to my fleet?"  
"Chance. My ship is a scavenging ship. We just take broken ship scraps in space and sell them. What brought you here?" A secretly nervous Hulumn asked.  
"I am asking the questions. You will answer when I speak, and you will leave when I say so. Do you understand?" The alien said, jabbing a finger at the almost shaking captain.  
"Y- yes, sir," She said submissively. She knew this creature had the upper hand. _T__his is gonna be a long few hours, if I even make it out alive, she thought_. At that moment, however, she knew that she wasn't, as a greener crew member draw his DH-17 pistol and managed to squeeze a few shots on the red alien, sending it recoiling in suprize but seemingly without amy harm, the blaster bolts hitting a bluish ray shield.

***  
"Open fire!" The white armored creagure ordered, translated as to scare the puny creatures, including a heretical human, before they were to be slaughtered. He personally took the captain by its throat and ripped one of the horns out from under its chin before impailing its throat with it, then dropped it.

***  
"Shit, come on, lets get inside!" The man that fired on the aliens said. Half of the crew sent outside was lucky enough to scramble inside as the pilot started to take off and made it out of the airlock. However, the ship wouldn't make it far before pulse lasers cut through its turrets and engines, leaving the ship floating in space. The final nail in the coffin was driven home as a loud metal clang resonated throughout the ship and a hole was burned into the cargo hold, letting a dozen small squat tan aliens in colored armor with tanks leap out, followed by 2 of the monstrous aliens.  
"Passageways! C'mon!" The navigations officer whispered as she moved a nearby vent cover quietly up and opened the passage for the 2 people in the bridge with her. If all went well, they could make it to the other end of the ship and access the escape pods.  
"Please no!" Someone screamed as a door blew open and loud whirring filled the room, quickly followed by a single pulse and a bright blue flash through the cracks, followed by the thump of a body hitting the ground.  
"Wort wort wort," One of the aliens said, and the smaller aliens scampered throughout the ship, scanning passageways and rooms carefully and looking for the few remaining crew.

Over the next hour, they made it to the escape pod, but in that time, more screams were heard, small firefights erupted, and the artificial gravity died, nearly sending them banging into the floor above them and alerting the aliens. As they climbed from the vent, the leader, a random mercenary hired to protect from pirates and the likes, noticed something odd. 2 turquoise glowing lights shown in front of him, and as his eyes adjusted, he recognized what he saw and moved to draw his blaster, but fell slack as the points erupted into light and a plasma bolt melted his face off, sending the two other crewmen scurrying back down where they came from, only to be met with a glowing, sticky ball that got louder and lou-

"Commander, the last of the crew has been routed or killed. I recommend we let the huragok board and scavenge what we can before we destroy this filth," The sangheili, a minor named Ngas Krelos called to the mission commander aboard the boarding craft.  
"Yes, that would be wise. Return to the entrance. I am assigning you protection of the huragok," The commander responded, ever vigiliant.  
"It shall be done, sir," Ngas replied as he got up and returned to the room that resembled a sort of cargo hold. Soon therafter, the familiar blue glow of the huragok emerged from the now dimmed boarding tube. It greeted Ngas, a welcome, if rare, gesture between huragok and other species, then went along its way, fiddling with an alien pistol similar to some human sidearms, but with a tipped silver cylinder and obvious vents for cooling. Soon it handed it to Ngas and floated into the clear bridge before probing a computer port with its cilia and inserting a tentacle into it. With its translator a low synthesized voice spoke.  
"The data upload to me will take several moments. There is a large amount of data, but it has been well stored and compressed. Please guard me until I finish downloading it," It said anticlimatically, until rustling was heard behind the vent grate, which was kicked open to reveal three armed aliens and a human shakily holding a plasma pistol, all easy targets, although one round did nearly hit the huragok, which earned that creature a boot to the skull, leaving a slippery, bloody mess in its wake.  
"Huragok, are you ok?"  
"Quiet please. You are interfering with my work. I have little time left for this. And... complete, with grand success. We should return to the fleet and tell them of the news. This is quite the galaxy we have to explore. Many creatures, much technology. I will have my work cut out for me," It said, its body language expressing its excitment far more than its monotone voice.  
"An entire galaxy? This will be quite the work indeed," Ngas said as they boarded the craft with the unggoy and other sangheili in tow. "And quite the war to fight."


	2. (2) A step on the path

High charity, 9th age of Reclamation

A sangheili honor guard stormed into the chamber of the hierarchs, then bowed before the majestic leaders before him. "Great hierarchs, I bear news of the expansion fleets. I know not what the message is, though it must be important to be delived directly to your greatnesses with such haste" He said, still kneeling, somehow in one breath.  
"What could possibly be so important to warrant entering in the middle of our sermon?!" Regret demanded as soon as the warrior stopped talking.  
"Noble prophet of regret, I know nothing, other than that it came from an expansion fleet," The sangheili said, clearly worried at what regret's response might be.  
"Most interesting..." The Prophet of Truth said, tugging on his wattles in unconscious intrigue. "Tell us the message."  
"Yes, noble one," the sangheili said. It held out a purple ball and nearly pressed the irridescent yellow button when he hesitated. "Should I remain in your presence for the message?"  
"Waste no time, show us! Stay if you will!" The prophet of regret shouted impatiently.  
The honor guard pressed the button. The object floated between the elite and the prophets, and a prerecorded message played from the holo port at the top.  
"Great hierarchs," The gold clad sangheili fleet master said. "A chance encounter has yeilded a suprizing revelation. Humans are spread wide across the galaxy, although under a different banner than the humans that we have waged war against for the last age. Due to a diligent huragok, we know that the primary galactic power is locked in a war with a separatist faction that utilizes mass produced robots, while the larger of the two factions uses cloned humans. Beyond that, there are many small factions within the galaxy's regions, tamed and untamed; all war against each other in some form and vie for their betterment at the expense of others. We stand on alert, ready to destroy anything that will discover us, though we still await orders on how to proceed. Fleet master Rath 'Marelosee signing out." And with that, the message cut, leaving the three san shyuum pondering.  
"Guards, leave us," Truth said to the 2 guards in their chamber, along with the messenger. They dutifully obeyed, leaving truth with the other 2 heirarchs to dicuss the course of action.  
"Our war with the humans fares well. They are weak, terrified, and more than willing to fold to us, given the opportunity. I propose we shift our attention to the wider galaxy. There will be many relics to be found, and much glory to bring to the covenant," Truth said, excitement glittering in his eyes.  
"Indeed," Regret said, fire burning behind his eyes.  
"Very well. This may prove beneficial. The war with the 'UNSC' will be brought to a halt as we prepare a holy war on a scale only the gods would know," Mercy croaked, his voice caked with false piety.  
"A wise decision, elder. How will we divert attention to the new threat?" Regret asked.  
"Simple. Do what we did for the UNSC. Claim they are heretics and pose a threat to the great journey. From what we've been told, I genuinely belive they are," Truth answered. "And this time, the vermin will not escape the coming fire."


	3. Unlatched Gate

The Jedi reached out into the force. It felt the tug of emotions from across the galaxy. Fear and suffering, love and intimacy, awe and wonder, the galaxy was a chaotic, yet good place. It reached out further, looking to see the future and was suddenly pulled into a vortex.

Ships were burning. The dying hulks were being pulled into a dull brown planet's gravity well, turbolaser fire dancing across their hulls. A hail of light cut through a small town, leaving only a trail of searing white light in its wake. Lightsabers stood in a ring, deflecting blaster bolts, each blade falling and extinguishing one by one, slowly but surely. Out of the depths, a volcano erupted and a scream of agony resonated through an ashen trench. Just on the banks of a lava river lay a burning silhouette.

"I hate you!" It screamed. The jedi tried to focus on the figure, but it was pulled away to a view of a grey moon orbiting a blue and green world.

"You may fire when ready," a hauntingly familiar voice said, and the planet exploded in a brilliant blast. The jedi was pulled again to another unfamiliar scene. A planet was being pounded by orange blasts. Strange humanoid creatures with living armor and writhing staffs marched on a small bunker crammed full of visibly terrified soldiers. The jedi felt itself slipping into yet ano-

"A future that will never be," a deep, gravelly voice boomed. "Do you regret it?"

The jedi turned a full 360 and saw nothing. The voice was omnipresent.

"No," the jedi answered. The jedi was not penitent for such tragedies being avoided.

"You should," it answered. "The alternative is far worse than anything you could imagine. In due time, I will show and you must watch."

The jedi was violently ejected from its visions and fell with a thud back to their chamber floor. Whatever was coming, the jedi didn't like it.


	4. Plasma Burns

19 BBY

Fort Qatamer, Lorrd

Lorrd System, Kanz Sector

"All right ladies, I have a job for you!" The local militia captain said to a squad of clones he had command of. "We've lost contact with an excavation site that planetary command seems very interested in. I'm not at liberty to say what it is, but I'm sure you can guess that it's important. One fireteam of local militiamen was deployed, but we lost contact with them entirely at 0300 hours this morning. Now we're sending y'all in. Do you think you can handle it?"

"Yes, sir!" The squad said as one.

"Alright, then gear up and load up. You'll be leaving in 15, as soon the next LAAT arrives. Dismissed!"

Over the next 15 minutes, a storm blew in and a drizzle started. By the time the 2 hour flight was finished, sheets were falling, obscuring the clones' vision until they turned on infrared. The dropship shuddered violently, and the pilot came over the intercom.

"Ok troopers, 30 seconds from landing," he shouted, the cool in his voice clear even as the ship shook like a feather in a typhoon. Sure enough, they touched down exactly 30 seconds later, and all 8 troops hopped out and fanned out, not finding anybody along the rim of the crater, nor seeing anything inside the cr-

"Thermal contact, 3 o'clock!" One troop shouted. They all wheeled that way and scanned the area. Just like he said, a lone thermal contact was slowly dragging itself across the ground about 100 meters away. As they marched closer, they realized it was far bigger than any normal human..

"Guys, what's wrong with this wookiee?" One clone asked as he poked the massive thing with his rifle. The creature vaguely resembled a wookiee, but clearly wasn't any normal one. It was too tall for most wookiees, and easily just as wide as a wookie and a half, if not two. The pool of blood around it was red with globs of purple in it, unlike a normal wookiee's red blood. In fact, the only real thing that seemed to resemble a wookiee was it's massive size and short, hairy fur. This thing had 2 massive toes on trunks for feet, a strange, simian skull, a mouth crammed full of razor sharp teeth, and a scowl that could put an enraged rancor to shame.

"Should we bag and tag it?" One clone said.

"No, it's still breathing," Another noticed.

"Let's put it out of it's misery," yet another said with a hint of bloodlust in his voice.

"No, it could be a prisoner. We can get int-" the squad leader said before the thing cut him off. It rolled onto its back, a gory, bloody mess of its front being revealed, like it was fit after round after round after round of slugthrower ammo.

"Don't the rebels here use slugthrowers?" The bloodlusted clone pointed out.

"Yeah. And this thing got torn up and it's still alive after all of that," The leader said, waving to the pool of blood and minced organs on the ground in front of them. Whatever it is, we should be afraid of a) it being able to tank so much and b) the rebels for having so much firepower. I don't like this. Somebody place a marker on this thing. We're gonna split up into 2 groups of 4 and investigate this whole site."

"Yes sir!" They said as one, silently placing a beacon tag on the beast and forming up into two squads. Right as they were about to part ways, a rebel in a torn and bloody excuse of a uniform hobbled out into their path. He wheeled about, saw the clones, and scurried over before giving the closest one a tight embrace.

"Oh thank the force! I thought I was done for! They're crawling all over the place!" The rebel said, even as the clone he was hugging shook him off roughly.

"Who is?" The leader demanded, his blaster aimed at the rebel's chest.

"Those things! Big lizardy and wookiee guys in armor with ray shields! They ripped right through us with blasters. Our slugthrowers couldn't do shit against them!"

"Corporal, restrain this man," the captain ordered, nodding towards the other squad's leader. "You're under ar-"

"Yeah yeah, I'm a rebel, I'm under arrest, I don't care, just get me and my guys out of here. Some of them are still left, I think. I can show you where to go to find them. Up there, that control tower," he said, pointing his bound arms towards a grey metal prefabricated tower about 25 meters high in the middle of the excavation.

The clones look at each other uneasily. If such a big skirmish had happened and almost everybody was dead, that was never a good sign. Of course, this may well be a trap, but the rebel seemed far to shaken to be lying.

"What's in there?" The leader asked.

"Computer terminals, security feeds. That'll have all the footage and live feeds of all over the base. It's unlocked." The rebel answered.

Almost too willingly…

The team moved slowly and cautiously towards the tower, and finally made it to the stairwell. A private took point and confirmed the hallway was devoid of both life and traps. "Clear!" He whispered over closed comms.

The squads slipped inside and scanned the control room, a large, dark room with transparisteel windows. It looked almost like a venator star destroyer bridge, albeit slimmed down and simplified for civilians. One clone went to a computer terminal cloaked in shadow, only to find it destroyed with a mush of brain, skull, and spine filling the dented display, the gore's body a headless torso hanging onto a railing by it's 3 remaining fingers. The legs, in surprisingly good condition, were 5 meters away. 3 more bodies in various conditions were in the bridge, and the main computer was half melted and covered in intense burn marks.

"These aren't from any blasters I know, and ion rounds don't leave burns," a clone said. The rebel swallowed and looked around the room in fear.

"No, that looks like plasma damage," Another said.

The corporal looked over at the only partially intact body, a rebel with a slugthrower clutched in its mangled, mortified death grip. Its chest was lodged with several metal spikes almost a quarter meter in length, and its face was melted off like candle wax. "Rebels don't leave plasma burns"

"No, they don't. I don't like this," The leader said, staring out the main window.

Lightning flashed, illuminating the foggy site surrounding them. Thunder rolled, slowly rumbling away.

A loud, terrified scream tore through the rain. Quickly silenced with an unfamiliar pulsing sound. It sounded like it was right next to them.

"Wait… contacts on thermal! I don't know the silhouette, but I t- aaahhh!"

Several pink needles bore through the window, slammed into the commander and exploded, sending chips of armor, scraps of undersuit, shards of glass and a fine pink mist of crystalline shards and vaporized gore.

"Man down, man down!" The corporal screamed over his comms on the squad channel before thinking to switch it to the republic garrison's frequency. "Hostiles! Hostiles engaging us! Our sergeant is dead and we read at least 3- no, 25- 300 plus contacts on thermals! We already have intel and a prisoner! We need immediate extraction!" Lighting flashed again, then a flare went up. Another hail of pink needles slammed into the building, these ones slower, although they tracked anything living. After that volley was finished, a wave of blue glob-like blaster rounds slammed in all around them from 2 purple craft with stubby wings that hovered a few dozen meters away from the remains of the window, melting the walls and scorching everything exposed. A team of the strange creatures that the prisoner described burst through the door, only to be hit by a frantic burst of fire from the panicking clones, felling 2 with concentrated fire, though the aliens pelted their general position with glowing electric blue spheres. They whined higher and higher, then detonated in brilliant blue flashes.

One clone was thrown from cover and quickly incinerated by a hailstorm of plasma. The storm outside was getting worse, the sheets of rain thickening, running everywhere like a clingy, oily flood. Lightning flashed again, illuminating a tuning fork shaped craft slowly approaching. The flare was burning bright, illuminating everything in a violent crimson. The 2 small craft veered off to clear some room for the new craft. Behind it, another far off, tantalizingly familiar silhouette was illuminated in a lightning flash. The alien craft slid one prong inside. The sides opened, and small, bulky aliens with metal tanks on their backs waddled out, as did lanky, birdlike creatures with arm shields. They hit the ground in staggered thuds…

And got crushed.

The alien craft slammed into the horde as it jerked violently, crushing them into the wall or sending them tumbling off the precipice. The roof caved on the stairwell, closing the clones and their prisoner in. The alien craft regained control, only to drop to the ground 25 meters below. The cavalry had arrived.

A LAAT gunship pulled up to the hole in the wall, it's doors slid open, and 3 Commandos waved them in.

"Get the hell inside!" One yelled as another opened the opposite door and took up a z-6 rotary blaster, spooling it up while the clones sprinted aboard. 3 of the small alien craft swooped around and barreled towards the dropship. The Commando at the turret opened fire and chipped away at them as everybody else strapped in and the ship itself lurched forward, blazing past all the alien ships around them.

2 hours passed in a tense, high speed flight over scorched swathes of country. Upon closer inspection, it was clear it was from plasma, not fire. Those aliens were clearly either there for a while or were incredibly destructive. Finally, the LAAT touched down back at the militia base and the shaken clones spilled out onto the parade grounds. Despite the sheets of rain, every single one of them took their helmets off, the storm washing off the sweat and dirt, but leaving behind identical masks of shock and awe, terror and confusion, and ultimately, a deep, pervasive sense of dread. The militia captain came out of a nearby building and noticed them in formation. He walked over, took the rebel prisoner, and was about to go off on the clones not having their helmets on when he noticed their expressions.

"What happened out there?" He asked nervously.

"We need to get inside," the corporal said, more of a command than a request.

"Yeah. Lets go." The captain started walking back towards the building he was in "Follow me."

The clones kept close behind them, discipline shattered and panic amongst them rank. The militiamen who saw them were put off ease, and for good reason.

10 minutes later, the corporal was showing footage of the attack when alarms blared and a man on the intercom called everybody to arms. "Rebel Incursion! Repeat, rebel incursion! To your battlestations! This is not a drill, repeat, This Is Not A Drill!" The clones grabbed their guns, more annoyed than scared. Rebels weren't the true enemy now, fighting them was a waste of good ammo. The heard blasterfire, confirming that the militia was fighting. Just as they were about to open the door, a ball of green energy slammed into the door's window, slagging the glass and burning the frame. The corporal looked outside, the fog from after the storm obscuring the distance.

"Rebels don't leave plasma burns."


	5. For us, the storm has passed

0935 Hours, September 23, 2552

UNSC HighCom Facility Bravo-6

Sydney, Earth, Sol System

General Strauss leaned forward and snapped off his display. "Christ! Reach and this at once?! They take out our fortress world, then call for a cease-fire?!"

"I don't believe it for a second, but we'd be fools to not restock and prepare for an offensive," Colonel Ackerson said as he reread the decrypted the message the Lieutenant had received

"We shouldn't tempt fate, Colonel," Admiral Hood advised, his voice commanding. "Restock, yes. Rebuild, yes. Revenge? If this is to be believed in the slightest, we'd be throwing the opportunity of our history away. So no, Colonel, we will NOT launch a counteroffensive, and I'll see to it that that is final!"

The room was quiet as a crypt. Wagner didn't dare move, let alone speak.

Ackerson stared shocked at Hood. "Admiral, are y-"

"I am certain. Do you understand?" Hood growled.

"But-"

"I am asking you a direct question, Colonel. Do. You. Understand?"

"Sir," Ackerson said. "I understand completely, Admiral. It will not happen again." His face burned bright red, rage more than shame.

General Strauss looked at Lieutenant Wagner. "Lieutenant, we've all read your report. What do you think of what happened?"

"I don't trust it, but I agree with Fleet Admiral Hood, we should take this opportunity to rebuild, but we shouldn't let our guard down," Wagner said simply. "It was smart of them to take out Reach before they called a ceasefire."

"Anything else?" General Strauss asked.

"No, sir," Wagner answered.

"Very well, dismissed." The General told the Lieutenant, waving him off. As Wagner walked to the exit, he saw a soldier go up to the General and heard something about a press briefing mentioned, even as the door closed behind him.

"How did the meeting go?" Lysithea asked Wagner as he got on the elevator.

"I'll be honest, I don't know," he answered.

* * *

1245 Hours, September 23, 2552

UNSC HighCom Press Briefing Room

Sydney, Earth, Sol System

"Reach has been declared lost, as of August 30th at 2000 hours," General Nicholas Strauss said carefully to the mass of reporters. The room stood still and silent for several long seconds as the dozens of photographers, reporters, and soldiers present finally comprehended what exactly they just heard. The room was suddenly bathed in brilliant, blinding light and deafening clicks as every single camera snapped picture after picture of the stoic General towering over the podium.

"Major General, how many soldiers were lost?" One reporter asked, sparking clamor amongst the crowd.

"Major General, is anything left on Reach?"

"Major General, are we going to lose the war?"

That last one stung him, but he masked his pain in preparation of the next statement he would say, one that would cause far more uproar.

"It's good that you ask that. We are not losing the war, but to the contrary. The Covenant and the UNSC have agreed to a ceasefire. As of 0000 hours, September 25th, the Human-Covenant War will effectively be over."

Once more, the wave of flashes and snaps roared through the room, almost as powerfully as a flashbang. The room filled with shouts as every single journalist demanded answers for their innumerable questions.

* * *

12:50 PM, September 23, 2552

Sydney, Australia

Earth, Sol System

The entire city went still as millions of chatters chirped. All of them displayed the same text, the same few words that nobody would ever forget.

"Ceasefire declared. Human Covenant War over at 0000, September 25th, 2552." That's all it said. Those 11 words froze a city in its tracks, then a planet, then an entire species. The war was over.

There was uproar.

There was celebration.

27 years, 27 long years. That's how long it took to end the war.

"That's it," people said, laughing and crying in the streets. Everything they'd fought for, fought against, everything they'd gained and everything they'd lost, it all built up to that one moment. People mourned for the tragedy that was Reach, but they couldn't help but feel euphoric about the ceasefire.

"It's finally over."

It was finally over. For them, at least. The UNSC was spared from the coming fire. For them, the storm had passed.

For others, however, the clouds were just on the horizon. The howling dark had only just arrived for so many, many more.

* * *

**Happy may the 4th, everyone! Right on time, t- aww shit. Oh well, close enough.**


	6. The True Face of Heresy

**I guess I should probably say this, cause I don't want to get sued: 343i and Microsoft Studios own Halo, while the Walt Disney Corporation and Lucasfilms own Star Wars. Hopefully I'm not forgetting any legal simpery, and without further ado, let the story resum****e!**

**

* * *

**

9th Age of Reclamation

High Charity

Soell System

"Noble prophets of Truth and Mercy," the Bute said as he knelt, his hand in a fist on his chest. "I have brought the incompetent."

"You may leave, Tartarus," Truth said with a dismissive wave of his hand.

"But… I thought-"

"And take your Brutes with you," Truth finished.

"Release the prisoner," Tartarus ordered his men. Without hesitation, they let go of their cargo, a shamed, branded Elite, and walked out, knowing to listen to their hierarchs.

"The council decided to have you hung by your entrails and your corpse paraded through the city," Truth stated. "But ultimately, the terms of your execution are up to me."

"I am already dead," the Elite explained, covering the brand on his chest.

"Indeed. Do you know where we are?" Truth replied.

"The Mausoleum of the Arbiter," the Elite answered.

"Quite so. Here rests the vanguard of the Great Journey," Truth said, his head slowly moving away from the shamed warrior up to the many caskets embedded in the walls. "Every Arbiter, from first to last, each one created and consumed in times of extraordinary crisis."

"The Taming of the Hunters, the Grunt Rebellion, the Human War! Were it not for the Arbiters, the Covenant would have broken long ago!" The Prophet of Mercy shouted in a tone that blurred the line between rage and zeal.

"Even on my knees, I do not belong in their presence," the Elite said, refusing to do anything but look at the floor he faced.

"Halo's destruction was your error, and you rightly bear its blame," Truth bored into the Elite. "But the council was… overzealous. We know you are no heretic. This is the true face of heresy," he explained. Silently, he tapped a button on his chair and a hologram of a tall, elderly human appeared. It opened its mouth and spoke silently, the translation following almost imperceptibly after.

"Hello oppressed citizens of a once free galaxy. I am Count Dooku of Serreno. For my entire life, I served as a Jedi knight, and for many years, on the Jedi High Council. I dedicated my life to peace and justice, undertaking countless missions and risking my life countless times. I have protected people and communities, and brought countless criminals, pirates, terrorists, tyrants, and corrupt individuals to justice. And yet, as a Jedi, I was serving the most corrupt, most destructive institution in the entire galaxy," it spoke.

The hologram moved to speak again, only to be turned off by Truth.

"Very few know, but an expansion fleet has breached the slipspace anomaly. Beyond it lies the rest of the galaxy, a galaxy dominated by humans, a galaxy at war with itself, a galaxy weakened, a galaxy of heresy. That heretic, that 'Count Dooku,' leads one the most powerful factions of the galaxy, a group of secessionists that use an army of thinking machines to fight their wars. An army of heresy. He must be silenced," Truth explained.

"Its slander offends all that walks the path!" Regret cried.

"What use am I? I can no longer command ships, lead troops into battle." The Elite lamented.

"Not as you are, no. But become the Arbiter...and you shall be set loose against this heresy with our blessing," Truth said, a hint of mischief and joy mixed into his otherwise sinister tone. As he finished, he pressed a button on his chair and a large pod gently floated forward. Its base folding out as a walkway.

"What of the council?" The Elite asked, already knowing the response.

"The tasks you must undertake as the Arbiter are perilous, suicidal. You will die, as each Arbiter has before you. The Council will have their corpse," Regret stated, just as the Elite knew he would.

The Elite, the Arbiter, rose and stepped onto the platform as it opened, revealing the legendary armor that every Elite was awed by and terrified of. He knew his destiny now. He took the helmet, examined its intricate carvings, and set it upon his head.

"What would you have your Arbiter do?"

* * *

**Credit to the Dooku speech goes to user Steven Baleshiski right here on this app with his work _The Raxus Address_, give it a whirl, there's way more than just the bit I coopted, and it's all great.**


End file.
